With the rapid advancement of computing devices and network environments, online-based games have been increasingly spreading and developing. Online-based games have become more and more popular in that many unspecified or anonymous players at remote places can interact with one another without any spatial constraints and enjoy the games. Among these, shooting games in which players may shoot at targets in a virtual 3D space displayed on a monitor have been particularly popular due to a variety of visual and sound effects and the effect of stress reduction resulting from hitting a target.
The shooting games include a third-person shooter (TPS), in which a character manipulated by a player is displayed on a screen and where the player can manipulate his/her own character while viewing the backside of the character, and a first-person shooter (FPS), in which a player's field of vision becomes a character's field of vision, and where the player makes an attack on a target from the player's point of view. In the field of games where a player controls the shooting action by correctly aiming and firing at a remote distance using a weapon such as a gun under a hypothetical war situation, the first-person shooter, which allows the player to enjoy the game with a sense of presence or immersion as if the player appears to exist in a virtual world, has been widely used.
However, in the case of these shooting games, there are problems in that a clumsy or novice junior player has more difficulty in hitting a target with a bullet than a senior player and accordingly experiences an insufficient sense of immersion and pleasure in the game. These problems are a factor that hinders a new player's participation in or persistent use of the game. In particular, recently, online battle games allowing a large number of players to participate in the games make it more difficult for junior players to adapt themselves in the games.
Therefore, there is a need to increase the convenience of shooting games depending on the skill levels of players so that experienced senior players can still achieve a sense of more tension and liveness while junior players are able to adapt themselves to the shooting games with more ease and interest.
Online-based games have been developed to also allow games to be played via touch screens having a relatively small display area, such as smartphones and smart pads, as well as desktop computers and laptop computers that have a high resolution display and a variety of input devices. However, for touch screen displays having restricted input means, there is a need for providing a method of finding a target and to aim and fire at the target with more ease.